Free speech is at the mercy of a depraved minority

Is Zakir Naik a threat to national security?

Simple Malaysian: Well-articulated points, Commander S Thayaparan. I am in total agreement with your views, and as a Malaysian citizen, I want characters like Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik banned from entering our beloved land.

He should really be put behind bars as he allegedly propagates terrorist ideology, albeit in subtle ways at times and at other times, perhaps more blatantly.

I wonder if our PM or ministers in question would ever reply to Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia leader P Waythamoorthy’s letter (the letter was sent some time ago, but apparently it was never heard of again).

Prudent: Free speech by itself cannot be a threat to security, especially to a population that has generally disciplined itself against depravity.

However, even a depraved minority can cause havoc. And if the free speech carries ideas of hate that have proven to be able to provoke that depraved minority to violence, such ideas must be curtailed even to the extent of limiting free speech.

How much more should those limits be set if the majority of the population has not been shown to be able to discipline itself against depravity?

And by the way, many of Zakir’s speeches contain psychological ‘poison’ and ‘linguistic fantasy’ that can be construed as a threat to security, national or otherwise. So be circumspect.

Anonymous#007: Zakir is another ‘intellectually-challenged’ preacher who tries to garner a large following (and funds) to support his ‘Peace TV’ initiative.

This is itself a misrepresentation because as many intellectuals and courts (with learned impartial judges) worldwide have concluded, he is a ‘terrorist’.

Umno/PAS Muslims in secular Malaysia are more ‘extreme’ now compared to the pre-1980s period, because they have continued to ‘raise the bar’ in the definition of ‘moderation’.

For the last 50 years, Umno/BN/PAS have been increasingly forcing followers of other faiths to be subjected to Islamic beliefs and laws; the very action of creating and implementing those laws are itself in breach of the inherent right to practice one’s religion.

They have also surreptitiously been capping business, educational, housing and job/income opportunities for followers of other faiths, again hiding behind laws that are in breach of the constitution.

I can imagine that Zakir could possibly have a mansion in Kelantan, probably courtesy of Malaysian taxpayers and not zakat, while 8 million Malaysians need Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M).

I am all for giving a hand to genuine refugees – that is, those who simply seek a better life and are not trying to spread their religion, and those who have been accepted on genuine grounds in Malaysia, and not to meet Umno’s and PAS’ dangerous political and religious agenda.

The plight of the Rohingya is as real now as the plight of the Jews during World War 2. It is also as real as the plight of an increasingly larger segment of non-Muslim citizens in this country, who have been and are passively deprived of the same opportunities as their Muslim brothers and sisters in all fields.

Falcon: As if our home-grown problems and challenges are not enough, we import and provide sanctuary (allegedly permanent residence) to such individuals and their families? All in the game of political expediency?

Land of Dedak Eaters: Zakir is a danger to ‘sheep-like’ Malays here, who seemingly can’t think for themselves. He is barred from seven countries or more, including those in the more liberal West.

Don’t host him here, kick him out. We already have enough problems here.

David Dass: A Mumbai police report says: “Prima facie, certain comments by Naik justifies terrorists and terrorist activities of some organisations.”

“The report also observes that Naik ‘promoted religious conversions’ through his oratory on the supremacy of Islam.

“By way of his oratory skills, Dr Naik creates prejudices in the mind of people by asserting how other holy books of the other religions and their beliefs are wrong.

“His statements are against religious harmony and peaceful coexistence. His focus is on to prove how Islam is the only supreme religion. He spreads religious animosity.”

I do not know whether all these statements are true, but they are from an actual report following an investigation by the Bombay police. The governments of Britain and Canada do not allow him to enter their respective countries.

I have actually heard some of his talks on YouTube where he tells his audience that Muslim countries should not allow the building of non-Muslim places of worship.

Whilst I accept that followers of each religion will extol the virtues and validity of their respective faiths, public denigration of other faiths will create tension and disharmony in the country.

I have been attending Catholic services all my life in Malaysia and in other countries. I have never heard a Catholic priest say anything derogatory about any other religion.

The entire Catholic service is devoted to worship of God and the sermon will be based on the readings of the day and the lessons Catholics should draw from them.

We must encourage respect and tolerance. We must accept that people of diverse faiths live in this country and that our constitution guarantees freedom of worship.

Moreover, we are all equal under the law. All of us have friends, colleagues, employees, even relatives of different faiths.

It will be impossible to maintain those relationships if we ridicule or condemn their beliefs. Let us each be living testimonies of the beauty of our religious beliefs.

Hplooi: Zakir claims to be an ‘expert in comparative religion’, a view fervently promoted by his supporters, with the context being that Zakir is a reputable ‘scholar’ of unimpugnable integrity and dispassionate professionalism.

Nothing is further from the truth. An expert in comparative religion would (in my opinion) have :

1) Core expertise in history of philosophy, epistemology (theory of knowledge), maybe even linguistics (from the perspective of epistemology), etc;

2) A real dispassionate professionalism, such as the dispassionate scrutiny of an anthropologist.

Zakir shows none of the qualities aforesaid. Even worst, he possibly does not even understand core issues in comparative religion, for example, Nietzsche, existentialism, etc, and how modern philosophy dealt with ‘ethics’ in a morality devoid of God (if that is possible) or the various form of proof of the existence of God through the centuries or how modern humanism evolved out of the centuries of conflicts engendered by religion.

Legit: Our PM and DPM would do anything to please PAS. It is all political. Zakir is allegedly a danger to humanity and should never be allowed anywhere near this country.

Malaysia is standing on a fragile line of religious intolerance and this ‘preacher’ is enough to tip the scale and cause havoc among the different racial and religious communities in this country.

Giving him the land and space to preach his venom here is beyond stupidity by any measure.

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